


Coming Clean

by Sarah1281



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Memory Loss, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 03:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4731365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen knows she hasn't done the right thing in the past and she isn't sure she's doing it now but she needs to explain it to him at least once and let him react, even if he can never remember it. Altered version of Gwen's confession about Owen in Combat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Clean

Everything used to be so simple. From the very beginning, all Gwen had wanted to do was help people. She never stopped to think of why because who needed a reason to want to help people? It was just something that people did, right? Except apparently not always. That the bad guys didn't was to be expected, of course, but even the good guys didn't always care. And…there she went, yet again, simplifying everything with the easy labels of 'good guy' and 'bad guy.'

Sometimes it was easy to label them. The cannibals, for instance, were definite bad guys and she still hadn't gotten a better reason for their actions out of them than 'because it made us happy.' Other times, it wasn't so simple. That sex creature that took over poor Carys and forced her to literally fuck her partner to death was a good example of that. It was horrible what happened but it had needed that energy to survive and had no real way of getting home. For the greater good it had had to be allowed to die but it hadn't been acting out of any real malice, she didn't think.

Gwen was slowly learning to accept the existence of shades of grey situations but she couldn't even get those right every time. At first she had thought that Suzie Costello, the woman charged with protecting Cardiff from what came out of the rift, was a bad guy for going on a murder spree to test her fancy resurrection glove. Then the woman had been brought back and Gwen had learned of her terminally ill father and realized that she had just wanted to be able to save him. While that in no way excused her actions, it made putting her in charge of the glove to be just asking for trouble and made her a lot more understandable.

Except then it turned out that she hated her father enough to kill him and when he saw her, he freaked out so it couldn't have been unexpected. So maybe she was just a bad guy. But she was clearly very unstable and oscillated from self-pity (there was a lot of self-pity) to iron-willed determination. She had been oh-so-very-sorry but she had been intending to kill her in order to regain her life. The life that, by the way, had been lost at her own hand when there was every chance that Jack would have just retconned her or sought her treatment. If he had been planning on killing her, he wouldn't have tried to talk her out of suicide, would he?

Her increasingly less practical black-and-white worldview wasn't what made her human but slowly losing it and being forced to make such terrible choices was really scaring her. It wasn't unheard of to change when you started a new job or moved to a new place or something equally big but she was worried that she was changing too much.

The people of Torchwood were all good people and they did a lot to protect the people of Cardiff (the people of everywhere, really, because who knew what would happen if they weren't there to stop the creatures coming from the Rift?) but they didn't always have the time or inclination to worry about some of the smaller details. If the alien was stopped then what did it matter that its host was dead? If a death wasn't done by an alien then why should they solve it, even if they could do it when the police couldn't?

Such thinking was so coldly practical that even she had to admit that it made sense and yet…and yet it wasn't right. It wasn't right to let things pass that you could stop for conveniences' sake. And there was always so much more to do. The Gwen of old would have listened to poor Eugene at least the once before writing him off as a crackpot and then she would have discovered that he really did have an alien eye and he might not have died. The new Gwen simply hadn't had time and even solving the mystery of his death didn't seem enough to make up for that.

Maybe accusing her new colleagues and boss of not knowing what it meant to be human anymore wasn't exactly fair or tactful but Gwen had seen the way terrible things could be happening and people could be in grave danger and the team just continued on eating Chinese food and joking about with each other and it had scared her. It made sense, she had to admit, because once something keeps happening over and over again it loses its novelty and becomes almost normal. No one could exist in a state of concern and panic all the time. The others had experienced things like the sex alien before and knew they would again and they didn't let it disrupt their lives because they couldn't. It was self-preservation, really, and it scared her.

Even then she had looked around at the seemingly unconcerned faces around her and wondered if one day that would be her. If one day people could be dying for all she knew while she sat down to lunch and it wouldn't bother her or, at least, she'd be able to not think about it.

And when she'd learned that nobody but her seemed to have any real life outside of Torchwood, she had been terrified that she was going to one day lose hers. Her own home had been attacked by those fairies awhile back and so it wasn't like she knew that she was putting people in danger just by being in their lives. She had actually briefly considered trying to cut the people that she loved out of her life to protect them but she hadn't been able to bring herself to try. She needed the people in her life, for all that they didn't know what associating with her could one day mean. It did make her wonder if being alone really was just a result of working at Torchwood or a conscious, selfless choice that they had the strength to make and she hadn't.

While she was struggling with all the sudden complications to her nice, neat worldview and the guilt of realizing that she was endangering everyone she knew (Rhys most of all), Owen came onto the scene. He knew she had a boyfriend but he didn't seem to care. She needed someone to talk to and Rhys was right out because he wasn't even allowed to know about what she did. She didn't want to add to the others' burdens by trying to relieve her own and Ianto and Tosh were too withdrawn for her to feel comfortable doing that anyway. Owen would only make fun of her or outright tell her that he didn't care and that only left Jack. Jack who was very often the most frightening man that she knew with his 'kill first, ask questions later' approach to aliens. No, she didn't have anybody she could talk to. Except…except that Owen had been willing to listen after all. Granted, this was only after they started having sex but it wasn't like they were bartering, her body for his ears.

And so she was having an affair. It was better to do it now while she was still unmarried than doing so after she married Rhys. If she married Rhys. Who knew if their relationship would survive for that long? It certainly wouldn't if she kept keeping secrets and had to take off at the drop of a hat for a job that he didn't even really understand and then came home and just ignored what was going on around her. She hadn't realized that she had been but according to Rhys it had been going on for awhile. She couldn't just count on him to always get over whatever she did to him. She hadn't realized that before but then it had never been a point where she needed to realize it.

Before, having an affair would have just been something completely bizarre that only bad people did. Maybe not people as bad as murders or rapists or whatever but bad people nonetheless. In today's world, there were very few occasions where a couple really could not end their relationship and Gwen had strongly felt that – barring an understanding between the couple – they should before they start sleeping with others. And now Gwen was sleeping with Owen and she thought that maybe she understood. Was she a bad guy then or had that been oversimplified, too? The ironic thing, in her eyes, was how completely human having an affair was. Well, that just went to show that human didn't necessarily mean good.

But now the affair was over. It hadn't really been based on any feelings in the first place, just lust and loneliness. Having secrets had made her lonely even with Rhys to come home to every night. Owen had finally found love with a woman from the past who simply couldn't stay and when she had heard about it from Tosh she'd realized that he'd been keeping secrets and so the whole point of their affair had been lost. They were in a rut and when she asked him about it it had abruptly ended with apparently apathy on his part and even she couldn't bring herself to really care.

So her affair was over with and hopefully it would never happen again. Gwen really wished that she could promise to herself that it wouldn't but then she had never thought that she would be the type to have one in the first place. Feeling bad about not promising now would be nothing next to making that promise and later breaking it. Oh, but she felt like a horrible person and she was about to feel like an even worse one.

She had to do it, though. She absolutely had to. She needed to be honest with Rhys and she needed it now. She had always wondered if those people who confessed long-over affairs on their deathbed were being selfish or if it was better that their partner knew about it. Well, neither of them were dying and she didn't have to worry about Rhys' long-term reaction because he wasn't going to have one. She would tell him, they would talk, and then she would retcon him. It was horrible, she knew, and she hoped that the only reason she would be taking away that memory and making her confession ultimately meaningless was because Rhys wasn't allowed to know about Torchwood.

She poured two glasses of alcohol as she heard Rhys come in.

"You drunk?" she asked lightly as she carried the drinks to the couch. Rhys had been so angry with her earlier for leaving when Jack had called her in the middle of their date, in the middle of their life again. He had issued an ultimatum and she had left anyway. He was about to get even more upset.

"Two pints was all I could get down. They've gone on without me," Rhys replied, sitting down next to her.

Gwen took a sip to convince him that there was nothing in the drink. She had been at Torchwood for too long. Rhys would never have suspected anything no matter what she did with her own drink. She waited until he had taken a sip before she began. She hoped she would have enough time to finish their conversation before the sedative took hold.

"Look, Gwen-" he started to say.

"I need to tell you something," she interrupted. She could just feel that an apology was coming her way and she couldn't take that right now. She was the one in the wrong and hearing otherwise would be just too much.

"What sort of thing?" Rhys asked curiously, innocently.

"I've been sleeping…" she trailed off. No, that wasn't right. She hadn't been sleeping with Owen and she needed to own up to what it was or this half-baked and by necessity temporary confession would feel even more fraudulent than it already did. "I've been having sex with someone else. From work. His name's Owen. I mean, he's a bit of a tosser and it's all gonna stop but…" But that didn't change the fact that it happened, did it? It didn't make it alright. Did the fact that she didn't have feelings for him make the situation better or worse? Better in that it wasn't as if anybody had stolen her heart from Rhys (and Jack would be a far more likely candidate than Owen of all people) and worse in that she had had sex with somebody she wasn't even always sure she really liked.

Beside her, Rhys had frozen. "Shut up."

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry," Gwen apologized. It wasn't enough. Saying 'sorry' didn't just magically fix a situation but Gwen knew that while an apology might not help matters, the lack of one often made it worse.

"You wouldn't do that!" Rhys cried out. His faith in her had always been one of the things that she had most loved about him but now it just hurt because it was a reminder that she couldn't live up to it.

"But I have," Gwen corrected him.

"Th-then why are you telling me?" Rhys demanded, his face starting to crumble.

"Because I'm ashamed and angry," Gwen told him simply.

Rhys laughed harshly. "What do you have to be angry about? Is this my fault?"

"No," Gwen said, shaking her head quickly. "Of course not. I'm angry at myself. I shouldn't have done it. I knew before I even started that I shouldn't and I knew it every step of the way. And I'm angry that if Owen hadn't fallen in love with somebody else we might still be doing it."

Rhys was quiet for a moment. "Why?"

"I-I don't know," Gwen replied.

"Yes, you do, Gwen. You have to," Rhys disagreed. "You can't just say that there was no reason. These things don't 'just happen.'"

Gwen said nothing. He was right, of course, and the reason was why she had to retcon him. Part of her wondered if she should have just confessed to the affair and not explained why but it was a little late now since the retcon was already swimming in his system.

Rhys sighed. "When did I stop being enough for you, Gwen? When you were a police officer me being a transport manager wasn't a problem but now that you're in the special ops…"

"That's not it!" Gwen insisted. "I swear, it's really not. And it's not you, it's me."

Rhys looked right at her. "That's the most cliché break-up line in existence, Gwen, and I expected a little better from you."

"I'm not breaking up with you," Gwen said, shocked.

"Oh, so do I get to break up with you?" Rhys asked rhetorically. "I suppose everyone will think I'm mental."

"I don't see why we have to break up at all," Gwen said in a quiet voice. If he didn't end up forgiving her, if he tried to leave her and was stopped by the retcon…well what kind of a relationship was that?

"Because you cheated on me and you can't even tell me why," Rhys said bluntly.

"It's just…the job, you know?" Gwen asked lamely.

Rhys closed his eyes and took a deep breath before responding. "I am so sick of you blaming everything on that ruddy job of yours. You make your own choices, Gwen, and you always have."

"I work at Torchwood," Gwen told him. "You know all those alien invasions that have been going on the past few years? Well, they're real. There's a rift in time and space right here in Cardiff and aliens come through it. Torchwood hunts them down and stops them from being a threat to people. I do that."

Rhys tossed back the rest of his drink. "You're not serious."

"I'm perfectly serious," Gwen said grimly. "Only it has to be a secret and so I can't ever tell anybody. Those aliens kill people sometimes, you know, and people always get hurt. Sometimes we can't always save the day and sometimes we have to kill the aliens. There's just this whole new world out there that joining Torchwood has made me a part of and I can't even share it with anybody except the four other people on my team and they're not exactly the sharing type."

"So…what?" Rhys demanded. "Your normal life isn't enough anymore?"

"Yes…no…I don't know," Gwen said, running a hand through her hair in frustration. "I want it to be but when I'm here I have to pretend that I don't know half of the things I do and the people around me, you, genuinely don't know. It just doesn't feel real and I want it to so much, you have no idea. And I was worried about what the job was doing to me but you can't just quit it and I don't want to anyway. And I know that's no excuse but Owen is Torchwood and so he understood."

"I'm never going to understand your…alien-catching or whatever Torchwood is, even if I know about it," Rhys said finally. "I'm not even sure I really believe it anyway. You really think that if it happened once it won't happen again?"

Gwen hesitated, remembering her earlier uncertainty, before abruptly coming to a decision. "It won't," she said firmly. "And Rhys, despite all of that I still love you and I still want to be with you. That's why you have to…no, that's why I need you to forgive me."

Rhys stared at her in disbelief. "Gwen, you can't just drop something like that on a bloke and expect him to be able to forgive you instantaneously! These things take time."

They wouldn't get time. "Would you take the time?"

"I don't know, I need to think," Rhys said, putting his hands to his head. "It's just…I don't think I drank all that much…"

The sedative must be starting to take effect then. Gwen cursed herself for that, she thought she'd have more time! "Rhys, please!" she begged.

"You're hardly in a position to be making demands," Rhys said a bit stiffly before relenting. "Oh, alright. I think, if I had to choose now…yes, I do want to try to work things out with you. I don't know if we can but I think we have a much better chance now that you're being honest with me."

The worst thing was that Gwen thought that as well. If only she had been able to talk about it from the beginning then that thing with Owen might never have happened. She had to be careful that she stuck to attributing causes and not assigning blame. Torchwood's secrecy hadn't forced her into doing anything. But how could she tell him about the retcon? It seemed horrible to lie to him, even by omission, mere moments after he was talking about having an honest relationship with her but just the same that was most certainly something he wouldn't want to know.

But Rhys had figured it out. "Gwen," he said slowly. "You said that no one is allowed to know about Torchwood. I'm not allowed to know. That was the problem in the first place, you said. But you just told me."

"I found out about Torchwood twice," Gwen said softly. "The first time Jack took me out for a drink and answered all my questions before informing me that there was an amnesia pill in my drink and I wouldn't remember any of it. I remember being so mad at him for getting my hopes up with all those answers if he was just going to take it away again. I tried to write myself a message on the computer but it wasn't there when I woke up and I couldn't remember anything."

"Then how do you know now?" Rhys demanded, the suspicion in his eyes only growing stronger. "Did somebody tell you?"

"No, I saw something that triggered my memory and broke through the retcon. I don't know why it happened, just that it did and it might happen again. Jack decided to give me a job since one of his people had just died," Gwen explained, choosing to leave out the circumstances of Suzie's death since there wasn't any time and it would just confuse the issue. "Sometimes retcon can be broken through, you know, and then they usually let it go."

"Did you retcon me?" Rhys asked, his voice completely emotionless.

"Yes."

"How-how dare you? Gwen, we were just talking about working through this and being honest with each other and now I'm not even going to remember this? How can you be so goddamn selfish?" Rhys shouted at her.

"I'm sorry," Gwen apologized again.

"That's not good enough!" Rhys insisted.

"You can't know about Torchwood, I told you," Gwen tried to explain.

Rhys wasn't particularly sympathetic. "Then you should have told me without mentioning anything I couldn't know! Did you just do it that way so you'd have an excuse to retcon me without admitting to yourself that you just wanted the catharsis of confessing without having to live with the consequences?"

That possibility had, in fact, crossed Gwen's mind. "That's not true," she whispered.

A bitter smile crossed Rhy's face. "It's a good thing I had decided to stay, isn't it? If not then you'd have to live with the knowledge that you were essentially forcing me to be with you. I wish I were vindictive enough to tell you that now…"

"But you're not," Gwen concluded. "I know that this won't mean much coming from me right now but…thank you. It's more than I deserve."

"Right now I'd be inclined to agree with you," Rhys said, his eyes beginning to blink rapidly like he was starting to fight the sedative. "What's done is done and I don't forgive you for this or for the affair – like there was time for forgiveness! – but just promise me one thing, Gwen."

"Anything," Gwen said, almost desperately. Depending on what he asked she might not be able to do it but oh how she wanted to give him something back in return for all of this that she was putting him through.

"Don't marry me with all these lies between us," Rhys instructed her.

Gwen felt tears forming in her eyes. He was thinking about marriage? "I won't," she managed to choke out.

Rhys nodded tiredly. "Good. Then that's…good."

With that, he slumped over.

Gwen tidied up the area and got a blanket for him.

That hadn't helped nearly as much as she thought it would. If anything, it only made her feel worse. Rhys would have forgiven her but he hadn't, she hadn't given him enough time. And nothing had really changed. She was through with Owen but that just brought them back to their pre-Owen problems and there was no easy answer that she could see.

If she could just tell him, really tell him…that wouldn't fix everything, either, but it would be a start.

As it was, she was left feeling like she'd just made a terrible mistake and for the life of her she didn't know how to fix it.


End file.
